Market For A Mate Can Resemble Supermarket Strategies

New research suggests understanding the forces that drive hunger and desire could help us eat healthier and have more satisfying relationships.

Just as supermarkets offer plenty of choices, dating choices abound with opportunities ranging from online sites to speed dating, greatly increasing the ability to search for and meet potential mates.

Lucy Hunt, Ph.D. candidate from the University of Texas at Austin, wanted to understand if the medium in which someone introduces their self affects another person’s perception. She discovered when it comes to first impressions, a picture is not worth a thousand words.

Hunt compared the kinds of first impressions elicited, using the same group of individuals, via: (a) a live, face-to-face encounter with those individuals, (b) a photograph of those individuals, or (c) a video of those individuals attending a brief date.

Her study suggests that certain evaluative contexts are more similar (e.g., face-to-face and video) than others (e.g., face-to-face and photo) in the kinds of first impressions they tend to elicit from others.

Although her study focused on undergraduate students, her findings could have implications for anything from job hiring to dating, as technology has allowed us to encounter novel individuals in more diverse formats.

“It is important to recognize the extent to which such different formats elicit fundamentally similar versus dissimilar impressions,” according to Hunt.

Some suggest strategies for seeking and discovering a mate are similar to finding a favorite food. In Dr. Kristina Durante’s research on mate choice, she found patterns similar to food regulation.

For example, encountering a potential romantic partner serendipitously — due to happenstance instead of deliberate choice characteristic of online dating — enhanced people’s perceptions of future love. This included the desire to see the person again, and then, a sustained satisfaction over time.

These effects parallel findings for food: encountering a food item in isolation versus amongst a choice set enhanced desire for the food and overall consumption.

Additionally, Durante’s preliminary work indicates that men who experienced a plentiful mating market as a teenager regulated mating behavior.

However, men who experienced an impoverished mating market as a teenager pursued a sexual partner comparably whether risk was high or low.

These results mirror the food choice results seen in studies examining socioeconomic status and long-term effects on food consumption.

“The rewarding nature of seeking and finding food and companionship share similar pathways in the brain,” summarizes Durante, of Rutgers Business School.

“Highlighting the parallels in choice behavior for each appetitive system, food and love, can lead to novel research that is poised to improve interventions that enhance relationship satisfaction.”

Researchers presented their research as part of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention.

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Rick Nauert PhD

Dr. Rick Nauert has over 25 years experience in clinical, administrative and academic healthcare. He is currently an associate professor for Rocky Mountain University of Health Professionals doctoral program in health promotion and wellness. Dr. Nauert began his career as a clinical physical therapist and served as a regional manager for a publicly traded multidisciplinary rehabilitation agency for 12 years. He has masters degrees in health-fitness management and healthcare administration and a doctoral degree from The University of Texas at Austin focused on health care informatics, health administration, health education and health policy. His research efforts included the area of telehealth with a specialty in disease management.